Tag: harry and meghan

the thrill of the cliffhanger

person climbing on mountain
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You hold on with fingernails

Gouging trails in the cliff face

In the futile hope

That you’ll manage to hang on

And wait that full week

For those next three episodes

And the bombshells they’ll bring.

I have literally just finished watching the first half of the Meghan and Harry documentary series on Netflix. I have to admit that I was so excited, I could quite easily have called in sick so that I could watch it immediately (I didn’t actually do that).

The news reports today are saying that the Royal Family are breathing a sigh of relief because there were no bombshells that made them look bad. The first three episodes were all about the couple’s early days and it ended just as we were reaching the time of the wedding.

My honest opinion is that the Royal Family shouldn’t relax too quickly because I think there is worse to come.

Everything about this documentary has been so closely orchestrated and I think that cutting the series in two is very clever of Netflix. I, for one, am going to be watching with bated breath. I have always loved a cliffhanger and I’m a sucker for this age old technique – they have me hooked.

Much Love

Rachel xx

i felt like she needed a hug

I do apologise for all of the royal commentary at the moment, but over here we are having wall to wall coverage so it feels as though it’s the only thing anyone is talking about.

And I’m even more sorry to harp on about the ‘Fab Four’ of William, Catherine, Harry and Meghan because I know that it’s a story people can get slightly fed up with. Even I am starting to feel tired of reading the bitching that goes on between the people who support either side.

I actually love them all equally. I think that at all four of them have met different struggles along their journeys – struggles us mortals can’t really comprehend. Perhaps some have made some mistakes along the way, but that is what is both beautiful and messy about being human.

The moment yesterday, that caught my attention the most, was the moment when a fourteen year old local girl asked Meghan if she could hug her. When she was later interviewed by the media she said that she did it because she wanted Meghan to know that she was welcome here, after everything that she has been through.

I can only imagine the fear that Meghan must have felt yesterday and I think she’s really brave for stepping out in front of a media that has been really nasty to her. And I’m sure that if she heard what that girl said, it would have helped her feel loved.

It was interesting to look at the photo of the hug and see just how tightly Meghan was holding onto the girl. She needed that hug, and I’m glad that a little angel was put in the crowd to give her what she needed.

Much Love

Rachel xx

we do funny things in grief

grayscale photo of an angel statue
Photo by Mario Wallner on Pexels.com

Some of the analysis of today’s events has been quite interesting to read. There are obviously so many people ready to jump to conclusions and read into just the smallest of words or mannerisms.

This can be problematic because the people that we are watching closely – the royals – are grieving for a mother and grandmother. And none of us ever act normally when we are gripped by grief.

Today, Kate and William invited Harry and Megan to come on the walkabout outside Windsor Castle and the whole world seemed to have an opinionon everything they saw.

I read anger into almost anything, probably because of a strict upbringing; if I did even the smallest thing wrong my mother would fly off the handle. I am aware that I am overly sensitive on this front, and very often, I am way off the mark and the person who scowled at me was just squinting in the sun.

But I couldn’t help but notice the distance between Kate and William as they walked down the driveway. I hope that my damaged little brain is just overreacting again, because I idolise Kate and William.

Grief does funny things to the way we behave, and perhaps Kate just powers through the sadness, and that’s how she copes. My dad is the most unemotional person in the world and when his dad passed away it hit him so hard that he couldn’t work for six moths. The reaction was totally unexpected, but what can be expected when you’ve lost somebody you’ve known forever?

I hope that they are all OK and my thoughts and prayers are with the whole family.

Much Love

Rachel xx

harry and meghan and the queen

tea beside cupcakes
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

Sitting drinking tea, moodily

The silence hangs so heavily

Over a drawing room dripping in gold

And paintings of kings and queens.

But this queen, she ain’t impressed

With her unwanted house guests.

Harry and Meghan are on the front of nearly every newspaper in the UK because they met with the Queen yesterday. This was the first time they have been in the UK together since they quit the Royal Family in 2020.

Most of the newspapers and commentators have been talking about how awkward that meeting might have been. And I can kind of understand why people would think that. I mean, that interview with Oprah probably went went down like a lead balloon in the palace.

However, the Queen has been on the throne for 70 years and she has weathered so many storms. She has kept calm and carried on through it all and I don’t think you can manage that if you also choose to be bitter.

We obviously don’t know what happened behind closed doors, but my hope is that she welcomed them in with open arms. He is apparently her favourite grandchild and from the Invictus Games video that they released, it would appear that they used to have great fun together.

Let’s just hope that they enjoyed an afternoon of laughter and reconciliation over tea and cucumber sandwiches, with the corgis bouncing all over them.

Much Love

Rachel xx

picking on famous people

We poke at them endlessly

With rods that are longer

Than we deserve them to be,

But how would you feel

Reading those comments?

Would you brush it all off,

Or curl in a ball?

Or could you find humour

In your own little faultlines

You put out willingly?

I was doing the thing that annoys me the most in the world, and I was reading the comments on the Facebook Daily Mirror page. It winds me up something chronic, and yet I still do it. And this one annoyed me.

The ‘commenters’ were ripping into Holly Willoughby because she laughed at a comment someone else had made about Harry and Megan. She laughed at something that was genuinely quite funny and it made me worry about where we draw the line when laughing at people; people who have purposely put themselves out there in the first place.

I’m not talking about malicious comments, but genuinely funny observations. If we are not allowed to laugh at anything then surely anyone who goes to see a stand up comic is being evil? Where is this line? I’m not sure and it makes me feel uncomfortable not knowing.

When I was swimming competitively, I was in the local paper a lot. My school put the clippings on the sports hall notice board and some clever dick stuck a chewy milk bottle sweet over my picture so that it looked like I was holding it in my hands rather than the medal. Everyone was laughing at it but I had to admit that it was pretty funny, and so I left it there.

Harry and Megan have gone through hell and I am sure their skin is much thicker than mine. I’m sure they can put up with some comments that are genuinely funny? Who knows, it might have made them chuckle too?

Much Love

Rachel xx

the me you can’t see – prince harry

We all have that side, that we keep buried deep

In the darkest of caverns, even digging would not

Uncover that me that hurts every day.

She hurts but she’s real and she takes on the shapes

Of a person with corners and edges and lines

That change when they’re sanded by words.

I keep her hidden as much as I can,

Out of shame or embarrassment, she stays tucked away

And we all have to hope that there isn’t a time

When it all gets too much and she bursts from behind

That carefully crafted mask that’s glued into place,

Because she’ll tear down the curtains

And splatter the walls with paint and those stains

That tell stories of anger

And a past that was buried with the deepest of love.

I just watched the first part of the documentary series that was produced by Oprah and the Sussexes. I know that in the UK the Sussexes have been slagged off for everything they have done since stepping down as royals, but having watched the interview, I get the impression that a lot of the people slagging them off haven’t even watched the interview.

The main argument against them seems to be that they are being horrible to his family and that they are constantly in the media even though they wanted a quiet life. However, they have only done three or four interviews and they do have to actually earn money! If they are to actually live they need to do something and if the newspapers won’t stop running stories on them then it’s pretty hard for them to just disappear.

Then we have to look at what material they are sending out into the world and I think that most of the time they are actually saying things that are really helpful to people. The documentary that I just watched was really positive and the parts where Harry ‘criticized’ the way that his family behave were much more about the trauma that we all carry rather than an all out attack on his father.

I think we all need to step back and actually listen to what people say rather than consume it through the lens that the newspapers offer us. Some of the comments I read online are sickening and I wonder how they must feel if they read any of it.

I think a lot more people actually need to watch The Me You Can’t See because it opens a window into the struggles of people who are successful and much loved.

And let’s stop being so horrible to people we don’t even know. Just because Harry is rich and privileged, it doesn’t mean that he can’t struggle like the rest of us.

Much Love

Rachel xx

…..thoughts on that interview

How dare she make a fuss,

Rock the boat

When she must bathe in bubbles of

The very best champagne?

Try being just like one of us,

The ones with problems that are ‘real’.

But what is real when families

Are called upon and fail?

Everyone can feel that pain,

The sort that money cannot soothe.

So, I could write for about six weeks on the theme of that interview and I haven’t even seen it yet. From what we have seen here in the UK, there is so much that we can have an opinion on, whether we should be airing those opinions or not.

I love all royals and I love Harry and Meghan so I’m not on a side. I hope that all of them find happiness so it makes me really sad to see people dig in. I might write about the Kate vs Meghan issue later, but I want to touch on people’s negative attitudes towards Meghan and the pain that she has felt.

She brought up a lot about mental health and most people were very sympathetic to her in the Twitterverse. But I did notice that there was a little bit of backlash because she has money, and I’d seen it months ago when they did the documentary before they left the royal family.

It seems that for some people, if you have money, you are not allowed to feel pain. Money should get rid of all that, apparently.

I saw one person write something along the lines of ‘try being a single mum in Birmingham, and then tell me about having a hard time’. I thought that was such a horrible thing to say. This woman has been dragged through the mud VERY publicly and she has lost family and friends as it has played out.

If we work on the theory that money solves all problems, we can safely say that here in the UK nobody has the right to experience any mental health issues because we are a lot richer than people in developing countries. We all know that’s a load of twaddle, so why would people even suggest that’s the case?

I just hope that the family can find peace somewhere in this mess that they have become tangled up in. Their pain is just as real as the pain us ‘commoners’ experience. It’s unfortunately a part of being a human being.

Much Love

Rachel xx

oooooh, this is like a disaster movie

Violins, strike a fearful chord

As lights are dimmed and we all feel

Like we are trapped in chambers beating

With the flood of chemicals.

There really isn’t any need

But drama is inevitable.

OMG, I saw the ‘trailer’ for the Meghan and Harry interview and almost died today. I will most definitely be watching when it is aired in the UK but mostly because I don’t know what to expect.

I love the royals and I also love Meghan and I sometimes feel like the media wants us to like one or the other. In my humble opinion, I think that both do a lot of good and anyone who is making lives just a little bit better is doing a good thing.

However, the royals doing interviews never seems to end well and so I’m a little bit nervous about watching this. I really hope that it’s not laid on too thick and makes them just look like victims, because I don’t think that’s a fair representation of them.

The American TV stations do have a habit of trying to make things way more dramatic than they need to. I could feel my heart rate increasing as I watched this very dramatic teaser. They even had movie-esque music to build up the tension.

Whether this is an inspired decision or it turn out to be a hot mess, we won’t know until we actually see it and get to see how the press and the Twitterverse decide to react. I just hope that it does go well for them. And I hope that it works out equally as well for the royals still over here and working as royals. It would be a shame if anyone gets harmed because of this.

Much Love

Rachel xx

happy news is always good news

Love can shine through photographs

And joy should spread like sweetest viruses

That pull us in and crack a smile

And smiles are all we need to move

Through this world of hurt and pain.

So soak it up and don’t turn sour,

You need this healthy medicine

To soothe the aches and pains of life.

I saw this photograph and my heart just melted with happiness for them. The love and joy just seems to shine out from the picture and my immediate thought was how similar the shot is to the one at the end of the movie, Notting Hill.

I kind of just wanted to put the picture on my blog because I like to flick through the pictures every so often and it’s nice to have either a fond memory or just a nice feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I do think that, as a couple, these two have taken a bit of battering and it’s nice to see that they have something lovely to celebrate. I’m a huge fan of the royals and I think it’s so sad that they felt the need to leave, but I think that we should all be respectful of their decision. After all, it is a job of sorts, and nobody would make you feel ashamed for leaving a job that made you miserable in a normal situation.

I’m sure that most people can really wish them well and feel happy for them. We are in the middle of a pandemic and I think that we need to grab onto everyone’s happy news. We need to stop being nasty and bitter because we are hiding behind a screen and a keyboard. In my opinion, good news breeds more good news, so let’s not stamp on this.

Much Love

Rachel xx

the royal drama

The wedding captured all our hearts,

We waved our flags wished them well.

The hope for future happiness?

It’s what the papers used to sell.

*

But as the years ticked by with speed,

Our hopes and dreams began to fail,

The love affair with our duchess

Had long before, set out to sail.

*

Who should take the weight of blame?

Was it them who riled the press?

Or was it us who pushed her down

Even though she showed distress?

*

But now we need to step away,

To look at what we’ve done again.

We’ve pushed a family to the edge

And not learnt lessons from back then.

*

Listen to his woeful words,

He’s lived through this one time before.

Those words, they prove that just because he’s royal,

It doesn’t mean that he’s not human at the core.

I’ve been watching the royal drama unfold with bated breath over the last couple of weeks. I love the royal couple and all I wish for is their future happiness. But I really didn’t expect all of this when I watched their wedding less than two years ago.

Watching this play out on the news has been a good reminder of what is important. Harry and Meghan never have to worry about money; some would say that they have the charmed life. But under the press scrutiny that she has been under it would be hard for anybody to live.

And then you throw into the mix the fact that Harry’s beloved mother was killed in a car accident involving the press and you can see why he is so protective of Archie and Meghan. It’s no wonder that he has made the decision to step back from everything he has ever known.

I think that we should all take from this that the most important thing in life is love. Harry looked so upset as he gave his speech about the split last night and I am sure that he is pining for a normal life with his wife and child. He is probably pining for a life a bit more like the life that I complain about. This week I will make sure that I am a bit more grateful for having exactly what I have in my possession. And I will definitely be saying a prayer for Harry and Archie and hoping that they have the life that they were probably dreaming of when they got married on that magical day.

Much Love

Rachel